COLUMN: Closing the door on 'Lockup'

Rick Martin

Friday

Nov 30, 2012 at 12:01 AMNov 30, 2012 at 9:09 PM

They say this is the most wonderful time of the year, and it really is.

The turn from Thanksgiving to Christmas definitely drives life into a different gear. Yes, it can be more stressful and hectic, but it’s also a time to think about the good things in life. Often, we use this season to focus on family, on giving and on making our great community shine with the holiday spirit.

It is not a coincidence that I have chosen this time of year to talk to you about a change in your Gazette.

Starting today, the print version of The Gazette will no longer feature “Lockup.”

Most Gazette readers will know that Lockup is a pull-out section in your print Gazette featuring mugshots of people arrested in our county for a variety of crimes.

Since – literally – my first day as Gazette publisher, I have received feedback on Lockup. Some positive, describing how it is raises awareness of crime, and some negative citing how it tarnishes the community’s image.

With all the conversation around this feature, my arrival in August was a good opportunity for our team to begin a discussion. And conversations with folks in the community helped me get a better sense of the image and culture of Gaston County.

Internally, our team shared an interest in a fair accounting of crime in our community. How bad is it? What is being done about it? What SHOULD be done about it?

Outside of the office, I have been struck by the “image consciousness” of many, who want to make sure that the Gaston County brand is not sullied in any way by the perception of this being a high-crime area. The fact is, publishing Lockup does not raise the crime level just as ceasing publication will not lower crime rates.

After much consideration and thought, I decided to end the feature in The Gazette’s print product. We know from our rack sales on Saturdays that it is a popular feature and Gazette readers are interested to see the faces of crime in our community. This is why it will continue to be available on gastongazette.com.

Here are the two main reasons it will no longer be featured in the Saturday print edition:

1) While all the information contained in Lockup is public record and does involve actual criminal charges, it is still a voyeuristic vehicle for delivering information. The array of mugshots actually becomes a caricature of crime — images that influence the perception of crime and circumvent conversations of how to best deal with crime. Getting a true picture of crime in our community should go deeper than a collection of mugshots.

2) Lockup presents a distorted view of crime in our community. Crime is difficult to quantify effectively, but Lockup certainly doesn’t make it any easier. Our job at The Gazette is to accurately reflect what is going on in our community. To eliminate all crime coverage would be to present too rosy a picture. But I fear Lockup accomplishes the opposite – it creates the illusion that crime in Gaston County is rampant, more rampant than the great things ordinary people do every day. For all the coverage The Gazette offers of positive things in our community, there is no way around the fact that the mere presence of Lockup has meant that pictures of those good things get overshadowed, if not by the presentation of crime through Lockup then by the conversation about it. That’s not right. Those people, those moments, those actions need their opportunity to shine and be a part of the true reflection of the community.

We will continue to make Lockup available on gastongazette.com because it is a much less intrusive medium. We decide what goes in each print edition of The Gazette. But you can decide how you want to navigate our website. If you are interested in Lockup, it will be on our site for you to peruse. If not, you can probably live the rest of your life without ever seeing it again.

Another benefit of this decision is that it will free up resources and precious space in our print product for more relevant content and information. I have challenged our newsroom to find new ways to cover crime in our community – not just individual events, but the “big picture” of crime and how it impacts residents of Gaston County and just as important to champion the conversation on how we as a community deal with crime.

So, as the hustle and bustle of the holiday season begins in earnest, know that your friends at The Gazette want a spirit of community pride to prevail not just during the holidays but throughout the year. Not everything we publish can be happy or positive but know that it comes from an intense desire to be a positive part of shaping our community by connecting with you on a daily basis through the pages of your Gazette.

I look forward to meeting more of you and getting to know this great community even better. And if you would like to talk to me about this or anything else regarding your hometown newspaper, please don’t hesitate to give me a call.

In the meantime, I wish you all a joyous Christmas season and a happy new year.

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